Our London adventures - Day 3 and now we're home...

So yesterday was our last full day in London, and I think the best way to describe it was crazy busy. I actually had to work yesterday (the meeting that I went to LON for originally was yesterday), so I was up early and had a cab take me to the office. My cabbie was pretty cool, but I have to say that LON traffic SUCKS!!! Our hotel was only 8 miles from downtown, but with all the traffic going into the city it took about an hour. Here in Cleveland 8 miles would take no more than 15 mins, 30 with heavy traffic. So I was already stressed when I got to the office.

My meeting went really well though...I was quite happy and proud of myself. :) I had a car service for the ride home, since Craig and I were supposed to go on the London Eye at 7:30pm. First, my driver was 30 mins late so we were stuck in traffic going back. I didn't get back to our hotel till 6pm. And my driver was CRAZY. First I have to preface this story by saying that 1) there are roundabouts everywhere in LON...think that every traffic light you see in CLE is a roundabout and that's what it was like. 2) Bike riding is very popular/common there, plus the bikers ride in the street and not really on the sidewalk. So I'm on my way back when a biker taps on our window, saying that my driver hit his knee. My driver starts yelling at him to get a mirror for his bike, and they yell back and forth, with plenty of "eff you's" thrown in for good measure. So then in his attempt to elude the biker (who was apparently following us since he knocked on our window a second time), my driver started tearing thru the streets during rush hour. Think 40-50 mph in a 25 mph zone. And then he started weaving in and out of traffic, at one point driving about 45 mph INTO ONCOMING TRAFFIC ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD!!!! He had to slam on his breaks at the red light to avoid a head-on collision. So I was getting kinda freaked out at this point. He then kept continuing to weave in and out of traffic at high speeds, taking the roundabouts without braking or anything. Only after the biker stopped following us did he drive normal. And while I think that gratuity was included in the ride (it was charged to the company account so I'm not sure) I didn't even ask since after that near-death experience I wasn't giving him any money, gratuity included or not.

When I got to our room we already were down to 90 mins to get back downtown. We got a cab at our personal expense (wasn't sure if we'd make it via public transportation) and were on our way at 6:30. We were making decent time, till we got halfway downtown and discovered that there was a water line break backing up traffic. To make a long story short, we got to the Eye at 7:45, but they were cool and let us get our tix and get on the ride, regardless of the time.

The Eye was so awesome...we went 450 feet up in the air, and the other cool thing was that it went so slow it took almost 30 mins to go all the way around, so we really got to see everything. After the Eye we wanted to go to the Hard Rock Cafe (when I was a kid we went to one in every city we visited) but it was already getting dark and we had no idea how to get there since it was outside downtown. So we just walked around Victoria a bit and then went to a pub for dinner. After that we headed back to our hotel to pack and just crash.

And that now concludes our London adventures. Craig and I got home today around 3:30pm ET. And I have to say, our 7.5 and 8 hour flights to and from LON were the best flights I've ever been on. The flights were so smooth it didn't even feel like we were on a plane. So we are pretty happy to be home, and REALLY happy to see Milo and Otis. I'm going to try and post some of our pics from LON tomorrow, and my final thoughts/reflections on LON (wow, that makes me sound like Jerry Springer, doesn't it?). Anyhoo, I'm off to jump into the shower since Craig and I are going to grab a bite to eat since we're too tired to cook and it's my birthday. :)

Toodles!!